I am in a great quandary about the chickens, and I have to go to Gregory to meet a cousin at the train, for I cannot trust Willing to drive across the ferry and go to the station alone; he is too poor a driver, and so I must go myself. A great many eggs are pipped and the chicks will be sacrificed if I leave them so crowded and so hot.
After thinking it over I made up my mind, took a basket, opened the door of the incubator, took out thirty eggs which had not hatched, and going to the river threw them in. I stood on the little wooden landing and watched, and to my horror the eggs swam!
They would not go with the tide but made a circle and returned to the shore, and I felt like a murderer, but I could not get them back, so I sadly returned to the house and reduced the heat in the incubator to 102 and fed the chicks some bread crumbs. Then I got into the wagon and started for Gregory.
It was dark when we got to the ferry and I did not reach the Winyah Inn until 10 o'clock.
April 30.
When Willing drove to the inn for me this morning I saw a large red object protruding from his pocket, and as we drove to the station I asked him what it was. He appeared very much confused and would not answer, so I told him to take the thing out, as it looked very badly.
Finally with much difficulty I made him take it out before we reached the station, and it was a quart bottle of dispensary whiskey! I was very angry and told him to hand it to me, which he at first refused to do, but in the end he did, and I put it in my valise.
I told him I was greatly mortified and disappointed that this first time I had trusted him to drive me to town he should do such a thing. He protested and declared that it was for his grandfather. I was truly thankful I had seen it and disposed of it before M. arrived, for she had never been to this part of the world before and would have felt terrified to see the coachman so provided.
When we got home Willing's mother came and repeated the tale about the whiskey having been got for her father, and I gave her the bottle. I know this little tale is pure fiction, for her father never drinks, is a model old man, and I happen to know a piece of inside history about Willing, which he confided to Gerty, and she passed it on to Chloe, who in turn confided it to me, when warning me that my faith in Willing and his meek ways might be misplaced.
He told Gerty, who is his brother's fiancée, that he was "coa'tin'," but that when he went to see the object of his affection he couldn't say a word, but sat dumb before her, unless he drank a pint of dispensary on the way to her house. Then he was all right and could talk a-plenty. I called for him this evening and gave him a serious talk.